


don't worry, you will

by knifepyjamas



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, It's My Fic and I Get to Choose the Projecting all my Mental Illnesses on Kevin, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Schizophrenia, Self-Harm, Songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23644885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knifepyjamas/pseuds/knifepyjamas
Summary: Songfic inspired by the song "don't worry, you will" by lovelytheband
Relationships: Charles/Kevin (Welcome to Night Vale)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	don't worry, you will

**Author's Note:**

> how we doing boys pretty good it doesn't seem. I'm not the biggest fan of making sad Kevin content but this isn't all gonna be sad and the song slaps so I'll make and exception

_"One new message."_

_"Hey honey, it's Charles. I'm calling because I'm, well, worried about you. You haven't been around much lately, which is fine. It's okay if you need time to yourself or away from us. But... you haven't been returning any of my texts and Kevin... you seem sad. I just want to know if you're okay. Please call me back or text me when you can. I love you."_

Charles's voice echoes out from Kevin's phone, deep dulcet tones bouncing against the walls and collecting as a film over his mind. Just a thin glaze sticking to his thoughts, doing very little to hide their actuality. 

He presses play on the message again, hoping this time it'll take over every other notion crawling in his skull. Maybe if he listens enough it'll seem genuine. Real. Maybe if he just hears Charles's promise of "I love you" enough he can capture it as a permanent truth rather than some fleeting proposal, ready to collapse the moment he realizes how- who- Kevin really is.

This thing they had between them, it was good! Lovely! Being around Charles, and Donovan, has made him happy in ways he has not felt in years, ways he didn't even know he could still feel. There isn't anything he wouldn't do for them; for that warm, comfortable joy they allow him to experience.

But he had been told time and time again that there exists too much of a good thing. When there is, it ceases to be a good thing. Everything great about it is tainted to something horrid or ripped viciously away from you. In return, you're left with... nothing. That good thing is now nothing more than an oozing, gaping hole punched through your core and leaking what's left of you to puddles at your feet, and a memory. Sometimes not even the latter.

He is... afraid. It's not a joyful thing to admit, but he's not in a particularly joyful mood. He is afraid for when Charles and Donnie will be little else than another wound, another reminder of how the universe revels in destroying him. Will there even be anything left of him then? Or will he just be a dim light, a husk, recalling how he thought he was loved once? He doesn't know, and that's terrifying!

There's so much Charles doesn't know about him, that he doesn't want him to know. He will find out eventually, and that'll be it. The day another piece of the life he is so desperately trying to create and love will crumble. Somebody will tell him all of it. He'll be horrified. Distraught. Furious. Betrayed. How the hell could he have let this... _monster_... trick him into believing he was someone worth loving? Someone to let into his family, to be the father of his son?

As he presses play again, he can't stop the onslaught of scenarios assaulting his thoughts. Somebody will tell Charles, and he'll, at first, assume that they're lying. A seamster weaving a horrible narrative. That's one of the many, many lovely traits of him; he always assumes the best of people, of Kevin. But then, he'll realize how everything falls into place. The blood, the scars, the knives: they'll all click together into the ugly truth.

Charles's face will fall, and he will cry. He will cry in a way so distressing: deep, painful sobs that ruin his throat and chest. The person who told him will watch with pity and empathy, but they will not comfort him. They won't know how. Eventually, his cries will fade out, replaced with anger and fear. What was Kevin doing now? Maybe he was doing his show, manipulating the whole town with his angelic persona- or worse, maybe he was at his house with Donovan. A murderer left alone with his son.

He'll speed home and run to the house after arriving and slaming his car door, bursting the front door open with all the desperation of a father who needs to protect their child. Kevin will look up at him lovingly, expecting his ignorance, his naivety, only to be met with hurt and despair. He will feel the world shatter from under him and that piercing agony in his chest of a good thing- the _best_ thing- finally being pried away from him. 

The Kevin in the now, who sits on his bed with trembling hands, drops his phone. It bounces off the mattress, hitting the floor with a crack. A cry forces its way from his chest up through his throat, and erupts from him in a sensation not unlike vomiting. He shoves his fingers into his eye sockets and burries his tapered nails down into the incorporeal but present flesh inside. The clawing does little to make him feel better. Instead, it results in blood and trickles of a black liquid to pour down his cheeks and onto his blouse and blanket. It's an unwelcome reminder of how terrifying, how disgusting and _inhuman_ he is. 

He's sobbing viciously, claws tearing at his own face, and he doesn't know what to do about it. He hat- he _doesn't like it_ , but he misses Strex. He misses not having to feel anything but the pseudo-happiness the pills would give him! The good things then were work and the experience of destroying someone so completely their life was left splattered on the walls and ceiling. Those couldn't be taken away from him like Charles could!

The thick, wet pop of him pulling his nails out of his own flesh causes him to shiver. He knows that sound well; it was the same as retracting a blade from a throat or ripping out a tooth. It's subconscious when his fingers trail down to his cheeks. He feels along the scars of his smile. It's been a long time since he had last cut them, and never within the time he has known Charles.

It's also- mostly- subconscious as he grasps the knife sitting upon his end table. His smile knife. Once again being used to its intended purpose! He grins open-mouth, and places the blade against the corner of his lips. In one quick motion, he slices open his cheek from that corner to his ear. It stings, but only a little. The sensation is familiar, comforting in a way that he doesn't bother to think too much about. He repeats the cut on the other side. As he runs a finger through the openings, a sudden noise manages to make him jump and drop his knife, which clatters as it falls next to his phone.

The voicemail plays again, but he certainly didn't make it. The phone still lays screen-down on the floor. The message's audio is cutting out, layed over and over, distorted. It loops before it's even finished, Charles's voice playing over itself until it's no longer a voice at all, merely a drawn-out suggestion of a person. When he reaches down a bloody hand to pick up the phone and stop it, he sees that it's... not playing at all. The noise is not coming from his phone, but from everywhere, nowhere.

Great! This is wonderful! He's internalized the message so much his brain's playing it for him. How considerate!

Charles's voice returns from its unified sound to actual speech. Except now, only one part repeats: _"I just want to know if you're okay."_ The lines plays until it makes Kevin dizzy. He's okay! He's fantastic! He-

_"Kevin, please."_

Kevin blinks. That's not part of his voicemail, but he can somehow tell that it's not anything else either. Well, technically none of this is the voicemail at all anymore, it's him hallucinating, but it just _seems_ like voicemail, okay?

"Charles?"

It's a whisper he responds with despite not being in a conversation.

_"Tell me. I just want to know."_

Now _that_ repeats, going on and on until... nothing. Silence from everything but Kevin's own rapid breathing. He stares at his phone's newly cracked and bloodied screen, at the little play button for the message. He then switches over to his texts and selects Charles's contact. Logically and, as some scientists may tell you, hallucinations hold no meaning beyond a symptom of drugs or illness, but Kevin was neither logical nor a scientist.

Charles he... he deserves to know the truth. If somebody tells him, it _has_ to be Kevin himself. Even if this ruins everything, it's better than just avoiding around it and waiting for someone else to ruin his happiness for him. 

_K: hi babe! come over now I need to tell you everything! [ominous smile emoji] [revealing dark secrets emoji] [yellow realistic human heart emoji]_

_C: I'll be right over, just gotta put Donnie to bed. ILY. [pink heart emoji]_

Kevin lets out a shakey breath as he reads Charles's reply. No going back now. As he waits for him to arrive, he switches over to the news app to check the weather:

_"Trying to stay positive  
not an easy way to live  
laugh right through the pain_

_she said "I can't find a thing I don't like about you"  
and I'm like "Don't worry you will"  
"I don't wanna find a reason to doubt you"  
and I'm like "Don't worry you will"_

_I'm a freak, I'm a fraud  
I'm a child, I'm flawed _

_she said "I can't find a thing I don't like about you"  
and I'm like "Don't worry you will"_


End file.
